Eroticism on canvas

The Art Pavilion in Zagreb exhibits until 11 January 2009 some 120 works of Milivoj Uzelac. Uzelac is one of Croatia's foremost 20th century painters. Born in Mostar, he spent his early childhood in Banja Luka. After the death of his father, Milivoj and his family moved to Zagreb where he studied for a year at the Academy of Visual Arts. One of his professors was Oton Iveković, a man known for his paintings of dramatic events in Croatian history.
When the First World War broke out, Uzelac moved to Prague but returned to Zagreb after the war. In Zagreb he changed his style from expressionism to cubism and neoclassicism. Not unlike many other painters Uzalac left Croatia for France, where he lived from 1923 up to his death in 1977.
Milivoj Uzelac's works are imbued with eroticism. Nude women figure prominently in his work; they radiate sensuality and sexuality. His reputation as a womanizer and lover of the female nude grew after the discovery in 2001 of a cycle of erotic drawings in Prague. Some of these will now be presented to the Croatian public for the first time.